His fingers closed around the notes slowly, almost reluctantly, I fancied. He shoved them into his pocket, then scribbled a few lines on a piece of paper and signed it with a flourish.
“What is this?” I asked.
“An IOU,” he informed me. I felt a mocking response rise to my lips, but something in his gaze stilled my tongue. He seemed, to my astonishment, embarrassed at being made a loan, and I realized his intention to repay me was serious.
“How long do you require to make yourself presentable?” I asked politely.
He shrugged. “Two hours? I will stop in and get a proper shave as well,” he added, rubbing a hand over his bewhiskered chin. “I feel an absolute ape.”
“The hotel has an exceptional barber,” I advised. “They even manage to get Stoker’s chin smooth and that is an Herculean task. Go there after you have found suitable attire and let them finish you off.”
“An excellent notion,” he said. We were like characters in a farce, Irealized, saying very polite things to one another and studiously avoiding anything of substance.
As if guessing my thoughts, he reached out a sudden hand, stopping just short of touching my sleeve. “Veronica, I wanted to thank you—” Before he could finish, Stoker appeared, adjusting a fresh collar as he tugged on his jacket.
“Have I interrupted?” he asked with a bland, mirthless smile.
“Not in the slightest,” I assured him. I reminded Harry to slip out of the grounds of the Belvedere undetected when he left, and we decided upon a time for our rendezvous. Stoker made no comment upon the arrangements until we were in Marylebone High Street, hailing a hansom.
“You realize we have left him alone with the diamond,” he remarked in a bland voice.
“He has two hours in which he must find a new suit of clothes, get to the Sudbury, and have himself barbered. Hardly time for him to make a proper search. Besides, I am entirely certain you have hid the thing well enough he would not find it in a fortnight,” I answered.
“Oh, I rather hope he does,” Stoker said. A tiny smile played over his lips, but he said no more and I dared not ask.
CHAPTER
23
We arrived at the Sudbury in the lull between breakfast and luncheon, the time when only the earliest of risers would be out and about. Those who moved in society’s highest circles often went to bed just before daybreak, having spent the night in various entertainments and debaucheries. A “morning” ride in Rotten Row would not commence until sometime after noon, but I was made of sterner stuff. I had long ago got in the habit of rising with the sun, and I had little patience with those who dozed away the prettiest and most productive hours of the day.
The hotel was just beginning to come to life when we settled ourselves in the lobby. Stoker had taken the precaution of making a purchase at the newsstand outside and opened his newspaper with a casual gesture. He passed me a ladies’ fashion paper, at which I pulled a face, although I was interested and not a little pleased to see how thoroughly out of style the bustle had become. (Bustles, while permitting an elegant drape of fabric from the front of the figure to the back, were a ridiculous invention. I had scant use for them, largely because they were so utterly pointless. I might have tolerated them better if one could carry things about—a selection of weaponry or a nice picniclunch, for example.) I was just about to make this observation to Stoker when I saw them. The lift doors, highly polished mahogany fitted with brass, opened, and the maharani, dressed much as she had been in her photograph, emerged. Her grandson paced just behind her. He looked a little tired, and I noted with some satisfaction the cut high upon his cheek.
“I see him,” Stoker murmured from behind his newspaper. “Was it necessary to hit the poor fellow?”
“I did not hit him,” I protested around my fashion paper. “He must have been cut by some of the flying glass when the orrery smashed.”
“And this is definitely our man?”
“Indeed so,” I said. I peeped over the edge of my fashion paper to watch the maharani and her grandson make their departure through the main doors. A carriage was waiting at the curb for them, drawing smartly away as soon as the doorman closed them in.
“If only all detectival work were so gratifying,” I mused. “That was ten minutes gone and already we have found our man.”
“The question is, what do we mean to do with him?” Stoker said softly.
I nibbled at my lip. “An excellent question. As you say, we can hardly accuse him directly of being the author of the crime. Or can we?” I began.
“No, we cannot,” Stoker said with unaccustomed firmness. He folded his newspaper and rose. “I am going to see Julien and allow him to feed me. You may come or not, as you please.”
I trotted after him, through the discreet door that led to the hotel’s basement. It was a warren of various domestic offices—kitchens, laundries, pantries—and the pervasive London smell of damp stone was overlaid with more wholesome and appetizing aromas.
We found Julien d’Orlande in his domain, the pastry kitchen, overseeing the arrangement of an elaborate confection.
“My friends!” Julien exclaimed, coming to shake hands with Stoker. He eyed my veil and lifted it to kiss me on either cheek. “One cannot hide such beauty, my dear Veronica,” he murmured into my ear.
I grinned. Julien’s flirtations were as innocent as they were obvious. He would happily kiss hands and cheeks and drop compliments like bonbons, but he was surprisingly monogamous when his heart was engaged. He had recently become enthralled with a widow of comfortable means, and his erotic attentions were reserved solely for her.
He brandished his pastry bag. “I am very nearly finished here, but the gâteau St. Honoré waits for no one,” he said gravely as he applied a series of piped embellishments of stiffly whipped cream around the edge of a circle of puff pastry.Pâte à chouxhad been piped atop this and the entire thing was topped with profiteroles, held in place with sticky golden strands of sugar transformed by the alchemy of heat and time into amber caramel.
